Embedding Technologies into the Farming Economy: Extension Work of Japanese Sugar Companies in Colonial Taiwan

Abstract

This article examines the extension of cultivation technologies by Japanese sugar companies in colonial Taiwan during the 1910s. As it became necessary for them to price their sugar more competitively in a Japanese market that by the end of the 1900s had become oversupplied, and with the devastation wrought to sugarcane cultivation by severe storms, from the early 1910s sugar companies accelerated their efforts to extend technologies to sugarcane farmers. However, such attempts faced difficulties at first because of the economic conditions at the time and also because of conflict with the production system managed by each farming household, which was characterized by multiple farming, crop rotation, and a circular economy. Realizing the deficiencies in extending the technology, Ensuikō Sugar began to reform its work from the mid-1910s so as to win the hearts of the farmers by reorganizing the hierarchy involved in the extension efforts The company also redesigned the components of its extension work by taking account of the economy of Taiwanese farmers. This article observes the beginning of the incorporation of the farming economy into a system of agricultural technology, in which the power involved in technologies gradually permeated the daily lives of farmers.

Abstract

本稿では、日本統治期台湾の製糖会社による甘蔗栽培技術の普及事業について検討する。日本内地市場における砂糖供給の過剰問題と、暴風雨による甘蔗作の大規模な被災をうけて、1910 年代初頭の台湾島内の各製糖会社は甘蔗耕作者への栽培技術普及事業を拡大した。しかし、その試みは甘蔗栽培に不利であった同時期の経済条件と、多角経営・輪作・循環経済を特徴とする耕作者の農業生産システムと衝突することによって、早々に不調に陥った。これに対して、1910 年代半ばの塩水港製糖は、（１）技術普及事業の指揮系統を耕作者の積極的な技術受容を引き出しやすい形に再構築し、さらに（２）普及させる栽培技術の内容について耕作者の経営を考慮して修正・妥協することにより、技術普及の円滑な進展を目指した。1910 年代の技術普及をめぐる以上の曲折を検討することで、日本統治期台湾の耕作者の経営が技術システムに取り込まれていく端緒が明らかとなる。

Keywords:

• Japanese colonialism
• sugarcane
• extension work
• environmental history of technology
• technological system

Keywords:

• 植民地統治
• サトウキビ栽培
• 環境史
• 技術普及
• 技術システム

Notes

¹ Throughout this article, I use cultivation technologies in a broad sense, indicating not only the use of artificial fertilizers or selected buds but also such techniques as weeding, plowing, leveling, and coordinated crop rotation. The purpose of the extension work done by sugar companies was to introduce these various cultivation technologies to Taiwanese farmers.

² I romanize Japanese using the Hepburn system, and Chinese using pinyin.

³ 1 kin = 600 g.

⁴ As Hirai (2007: 34) showed, though the production cost of Taiwanese brown sugar was ¥7.2, and the selling price of sugar for direct consumption was between ¥11 and ¥13, raw sugar was being sold at ¥10.5 in 1915.

⁵ Historical records for these petitions can be found in the Historical Records Collection of Industrial and Economic Relations in Colonial Taiwan (Shokuminchiki Taiwan Sangyō Keizai Kankeishiryō 植民地期台湾産業・経済関係史料) in Tōgyōkyōkai. The petitions were one of the subjects of the 135th and 197th meetings of Tōgyō Rengōkai.

⁶ The rest of the material charge consisted of transportation fees, harvesting costs, and wages for company officials. Taishōkyūnenki Kakushinshikiseitōkaisha Seisanhichō 大正九年期各新式製糖会社生産費調 (Report on the Production Costs of Sugar Companies in 1920), Nakase Papers, Historical Records Collection of Industrial and Economic Relations in Colonial Taiwan (Shokuminchiki Taiwan Sangyō Keizai Kankeishiryō 植民地期台湾産業・経済関係史料), Tōgyōkyōkai.

⁷ 1 kou = approx. 0.97 hectares.

⁸ In writing Japanese and Taiwanese names, I place the family name before the given name.

⁹ The average sugarcane field by household in 1920 ought to be higher than that in the early 1910s, but I have been unable to locate the data for that period.

¹⁰ These sample households were wealthier than the average in Kagi Prefecture.

¹¹ Wood was then unavailable to ordinary people living on Taiwan’s coastal plains, owing to the wholesale deforestation of the Qing era (Tseng 2006).

¹² Gannai and Shin’ei, located close to each other, worked jointly, and their territories were also connected.

¹³ At the end of 1913 there were on average 740 “farmers” (nōgyōsha 農業者) in each shō of Kagi Prefecture and 828 in each shō of Tainan Prefecture, where the territories of Gannai and Shin’ei factories were located. On the other hand, there were 1,049 farmers on average in Akō Prefecture, where the Hatao factory was located (Taiwansōtoku Kanbōtōkeika 1914: 14, 270–273).

¹⁴ Although the institution of the material manager had been implemented before the reforms in 1913, each manager had usually been responsible for more than one shō and often did not cooperate well with the company. According to the annual report published by Ensuikō Sugar, material managers had been “so irresponsible and lazy that their reports were very inaccurate and not helpful for the company [in] deciding policy” (Ensuikō Seitō Kabushikigaisha 1914: 14).

¹⁵ Guidance is currently located at the National Diet Library, Japan. Guide is to be found at the Hokkaido University Library and the National Taiwan University Library.

¹⁶ This is calculated as follows: the total sum of the bonus paid in 1916 by Ensuikō Sugar was reported to be ¥69,000 (Taiwan Nichinichi Shinpō 1916). If it was distributed to the farmers according to the amount of yield they produced, the bonus would be about ¥0.1 per 1,000 kin, as the total harvest in that year was 669,855,109 kin (Shokusankyoku Tōmuka 1918: 34–35). The purchase price of that year was ¥3.3 per 1,000 kin (Oda 1915: 154); thus, the bonus only accounted for around 3 percent.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shuntaro Tsuru

Tsuru Shuntaro is a PhD student in the Department of Contemporary History, Faculty of Letters, Kyoto University. His research interests include socioeconomic history and colonialism in East Asia. His current project focuses on the farmers’ movement against sugar companies regarding introduction of modern cultivation technologies.